DCUM Weblog

Today I am going to do something different with this blog, which may or may not become a trend. I've decided that as important as threads about soccer, Blake Lively, and college admissions might be, we are living in a time that demands something more. I may not have much of a voice, but what little voice I do have, I want to use for something more important. While I still have the freedom to write whatever I want, I am going to exercise it. Instead of writing about DCUM threads, I am going to discuss the current political situation in the United States, particularly where it involves the autocratic tendencies of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump and Shadow President Elon Musk. Today, I am going to discuss the Department of Government Efficiency.

The idea of Musk leading an effort to cut costs in government and improve government efficiency first came up during an August conversation between Musk and Trump that was live-streamed on Musk's social media network X. Then, on August 19, 2024, Musk posted an AI-generated picture of himself standing behind a lectern labeled "The Department of Government Efficiency" and "D.O.G.E.". Musk captioned the graphic, "I am willing to serve". Those familiar with Musk immediately recognized that the name fit Musk's style of addressing serious topics in a juvenile and trolling manner. "Doge" began as an Internet meme, and a cryptocurrency named Dogecoin was later created as a joke making fun of speculative cryptocurrencies. Musk became a champion of both the Doge meme and Dogecoin, which, despite its origin as a joke, became a serious player in the crypto market. Dogecoin owed almost all of its success — if you can call it that — to Musk's promotion of it on Twitter and later X. In typical Musk fashion, "Doge" is not something that he came up with himself but rather something that he has essentially snatched control of from its creators. Regardless of all of that, three weeks after their conversation, Trump said that he would create a government efficiency commission and place Musk in charge. Then, on January 20, the day of his inauguration, Trump signed an Executive Order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "The (official) White House account posted an ‘ASMR illegal aliens flight’ video" and was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a video posted on the White House's official X account, describing it as disgusting, disrespectful, and "Horrifyingly cruel". First, because many posters in the thread seemed unsure, the White House labeled the video as "ASMR" which stands for "autonomous sensory meridian response" and is something that is "commonly associated with feelings of relaxation and calmness". The video showed preparations for a migrant deportation flight with a migrant being shackled and additional chains being laid out on the ground. The implication is that shackles and their use are soothing. Many of those responding share the original poster's revulsion of the video. This includes posters who are generally supportive of migrant deportations. There are several layers that must be addressed on a topic such as this. First, it is important to understand that deportations flights from the U.S. have been common for years and have almost entirely been uneventful. However, since the beginning of the second administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, these flights have become controversial for two reasons: 1) the use of military aircraft, and; 2) the well-publicized shackling of the deportees. By highlighting the use of shackles, the White House is not only directly stoking that provocation, but going further to suggest that it takes pleasure from the action. Many posters favor deportation. Many consider shackling potentially dangerous individuals to be a necessary safety measure. But very few understand the compulsion to actually celebrate the shackles and their use. Traditionally in America there is considerable understanding of the need to take actions that can, at least to some, be harmful. This is often described as "making a hard decision" or "doing what is necessary". However, leaders are expected to be reluctant about such things. One of the biggest differences between MAGAs and those of other political tendencies is that MAGAs seem to relish inflicting pain and humiliation on others. It really is a sadistic political movement. As one MAGA poster in the thread writes, "It’s been wonderful watching illegal aliens treated like the criminals and invaders that they are." The Trump administration has claimed that it is prioritizing the deportation of dangerous criminals. However, their record in this regard is actually worse than that of former President Joe Biden. Many, if not most, of those being deported are guilty of nothing more than illegal entry and have not committed subsequent crimes. It is understandable that some might still support their deportation, but to find it — along with their shackling — to be "wonderful"? That suggests a distinct lack of humanity.

If you have ever asked yourself whether in a world in which federal employees are being purged en masse, aircraft are falling out of the sky, our President is proposing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza and giving Russia control of Ukraine, and a drug-addled billionaire has managed to buy control of the U.S. Government, whether anyone would still want to talk about soccer, you can now assure yourself that the answer is "yes". Two soccer-related threads are included in today's post. The most active thread yesterday was titled, "McLean leaving FVU" and posted in the "Soccer" forum. This thread was actually started a few days ago by a poster saying that McLean Youth Soccer would leave Fairfax Virginia Union and that an announcement could be expected within the week. Despite having discussed many threads about the politics of youth soccer, I am still pretty ignorant about all the various organizations. As I understand things, and I could very well be wrong, Fairfax Virginia Union was a conglomeration of three youth soccer clubs that participated in the Elite Clubs National League, which is a national youth soccer league. A thread that I discussed recently was about Girls Academy, a girls' soccer league, joining wth MLS NEXT, a boys' league, to form an alliance of the two national leagues. Much of the discussion in that thread concerned whether teams would leave ECNL to join the new combined league. It appears that McLean Youth Soccer has done exactly that. It wasn't until yesterday that the original poster's rumor was made official. That's when discussion really took off. Frankly, I didn't understand many of the posts. Soccer posters really speak their own language, which I have not learned. Despite this, I could tell that most of the conversation involved how McLean would fare in the new league. Similarly, there was discussion of the future of FVU after McLean had left it. As would be expected, there doesn't seem to be much agreement on anything. Posters have differing opinions on such things as whether current McLean players will stay with the team or switch to other FVU teams. Similarly, posters argue about the fate of coaches. One thing that I've learned from the various soccer threads is that a priority for the girls’ teams is college recruitment. Therefore, there is considerable discussion on how the change in leagues will impact the exposure of players to college recruiters. For some posters, the biggest issue is that this is another change impacting a soccer club that has apparently undergone a number of recent changes. These posters are frustrated and hoping for stability. Other posters debate the pros and cons of sticking with McLean and competing in the new league or switching teams in order to stay in ECNL. All the various machinations involving teams, players, and coaches give this thread somewhat of a "Game of Thrones" feel.

Yesterday, the Blake Lively thread was once again the most active thread of the day. I've already talked about that thread far too much and won't discuss it further today. After that was a thread titled, "Elon is coming for social security", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. One of the threads about which I wrote yesterday discussed Shadow President Elon Musk's accusations about fraud in entitlements and suggested that Musk might try to cut entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This thread is focused on new allegations that Musk made regarding Social Security. One of the biggest problems with Musk and DOGE is that neither Musk nor his DOGE tech bros know much about the government, let alone complex programs such as Social Security. They don't bother to learn, but still assume that they know everything. This has resulted in numerous obvious and amateurish mistakes. The latest is a tweet by Musk showing breakdowns by age of Social Security database entries. Musk strongly implies that millions of people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security checks with the further implication that this is evidence of fraud. Musk's first error — or perhaps intentional misrepresentation — is that the data only reflects entries in the database, not who is actually receiving checks. It is one thing to show that an allegedly 150-year-old exists in the database, but it is quite another to show that such a person is being paid. Musk hasn't done the latter. Moreover, this exact topic was previously the subject of an Office of Inspector General report in 2023. That report cited the issue that Musk highlighted, but also determined that payments to those whose ages appeared unlikely were not a problem. Rather, it found credible explanations for the discrepancies. One example of how entries such as those Musk highlighted come to exist was explained by a poster in the thread. That poster's grandmother had a Social Security number because she worked during World War II. However, she died in 1951 before she collected any Social Security benefits. Because there was no computerized database back then, her death was not recorded by Social Security. As a result, she is probably one of the 115-year-olds included in Musk's data. Another poster presented data showing that the number of Social Security recipients over 100 years of age is less than the number of Americans older than 100 known to be alive. Widespread fraud simply doesn't exist in this regard. However, the threat that Musk's misleading presentation of data presents is evident by the reaction of Muskovites in the thread. They accept Musk's findings at face value and ignore all suggestions that he might be wrong. Where this is all going is pretty clear. Musk uses his social media network to publicize false allegations suggesting widespread fraud, his supporters all believe him, which provides political support for cuts to Social Security based on the justification that fraud is being eliminated. But since fraud has not even been identified, let alone eliminated, Social Security will be left insufficiently funded and benefit cuts will be required.

Based on the most active threads over the weekend, it is impossible not to conclude that the leading figure of the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump is not actually Trump, but rather Shadow President Elon Musk. This is true to the extent that I am considering new titles for these figures. It might be better to refer to Musk as "Regent" and Trump as "Figurehead". Trump holds press conferences and plays golf, but doesn't actually do anything of importance. A case in point was his demand last week that all hostages held in Gaza be released by noon Saturday or "all hell would break loose". Saturday did see the release of 3 hostages, but far from all (and that was a planned release unrelated to Trump's threat). While Gaza has been hell for some time, the situation did not escalate. Arguably, due to increased aid deliveries, things actually got slightly better. These days, it seems that Trump can be safely ignored. Musk is a different story. Unelected and, apparently, unaccountable to anyone, Musk has lawlessly seized control of the U.S. government. He is now running things as if the government were simply another of his companies, following playbooks previously used at Twitter (now X) and Tesla. As in the case of those companies, Musk has ordered broad, indiscriminate personnel cuts. These cuts have caught the high-performing and experienced as well as those new to their jobs and those whose achievements might be below expectations. As happened at both Twitter and Tesla, Musk has been forced to rehire employees that he let go after he found out that they were more essential than expected. In this case, he removed employees responsible for the safety of U.S. nuclear weapons and the government is now desperately trying to locate those folks in order to get them back on the job. In this atmosphere, it is no surprise that the most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Where are the laid off feds supposed to work?" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. With possibly 200,000 or more federal employees either having lost their jobs already or simply waiting for deferred resignations to take effect, the job market is about to be flooded with former feds. While these individuals have a variety of skills and experience — everything from clearing trails in national parks to running foreign assistance programs in Africa — the one thing they have in common is that it is unlikely there are a lot of job openings for them. The original poster wants to know where these individuals are expected to find work. There are not a lot of good responses in this thread. A number of posters seem intent on humiliating those losing their jobs, and their responses are basically insults cloaked as suggestions. Some posters attempt to be helpful, but their ideas are not always realistic. For instance, the suggestion of teaching was repeatedly offered. Certainly, we need teachers, but this ignores the reality that teaching itself is a skilled profession. It is not clear how many of those losing federal jobs have the skills necessary to teach. The real fear, of course, is a domino effect in which these job losses provoke additional losses as the former feds cut spending. Some of those offering suggestions in this thread may find themselves in need of their own advice.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Elon prepares to doxx all Feds:" and was posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. The title refers to one of the undertakings of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Shadow President Elon Musk. Part of the doge.gov website is devoted to the government workforce and, while currently in development, will eventually have an easily navigable method to display information about federal employees. As users drill down through an organization chart, the average salary, age, and length of service of employees is displayed. I will note that I could find no mention of the Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE does not appear to exist as part of the federal workforce. Beyond that, a few points of clarification. This does not appear to be "doxxing" as the original poster would have it. Doxxing normally involves the disclosure of personally identifying information. In this case, home addresses, phone numbers, or other such information is not included. At the moment, names are not even listed. To be clear, the names and salaries of federal employees are already public information. Therefore, as things stand, this is not really a matter of inappropriate information disclosure. Most of those responding understand that this is the case. As such, their objections focus more on the presentation of the data which they believe is designed to create anger and hostility towards federal employees. For instance, the salaries of Washington, D.C.-based staff may appear high to those in less expensive parts of the country, but need to be understood in the context of the high cost of living of this area. Several posters, in fact, argue that the data actually shows that government employees are generally not overpaid and, given the high education levels of many of them, Musk's website actually demonstrates that the government is getting good value for its money. The discussion soon turned to other DOGE-related topics, with the usual pack of Muskovites joining in to praise Musk's actions. I'll take this opportunity for one of my own rants. DOGE is illegal from top to bottom. If anyone bothers to read the executive order that created DOGE, it has nothing to do with 90% of Musk's actions. Musk himself is out of compliance as a government employee. But, for me, the doge.gov website really takes the cake. For several years, I was a federal government contracter involved in information technology. Had I been involved in anything like this website, I would have been summarily fired. The website does not adhere to any government standards. It uses non-governmental infrastructure that does not meet government requirements for security. No surprise that the site was hacked overnight. In fact, while I write this, there are still defaced pages on doge.gov. The DOGE boy geniuses so far have mixed up Gaza, Palestine with Gaza, Mozambique, confused Thomson Reuters with the Reuters news service, and had their website pwned. It would be nice if this was the worst of the damage that is being done, but unfortunately, it barely scratches the surface.

The top of yesterday's most active threads list was filled with threads that I've already discussed. That included the Oval Office press conference thread that I discussed yesterday, the Blake Lively thread that simply won't die, and the Fairfax County Public Schools boundary thread that similarly appears to be immortal. These were followed by a thread about a possible FCPS snow day today. As I did in my blog post yesterday, I am going to skip snow day threads for a while. Therefore, I will start with a thread titled, "Wake me up from this nightmare" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. The original poster is a federal contractor whose spouse is a federal employee. The original poster's company has had many contracts terminated, and employees are being laid off. Due to upcoming reductions in force in the federal government and other efforts to trim staff, both the original poster and the original poster's spouse could potentially lose their jobs. They are financially conservative and could live on one salary, but not no salaries. The fear of them both losing their jobs is consuming the original poster and making it impossible to focus on anything else. Several posters respond to say that they are in similar situations. Others suggest that it is too early for the original poster to worry so much, and some provide advice concerning what to do in such a situation. While I'm sure these posters mean well, I think they are missing the big picture. By and large, federal employment does not attract entrepreneurial risk-takers. To the contrary, those who seek federal employment tend to value stability and security. Psychologically and by skillset, this may be the least prepared group of people to unexpectedly find themselves unemployed that could be imagined. Their entire lives have been predicated on this situation being impossible. Perhaps, as some posters say, things will not be so bad. Maybe those like the original poster can take steps now to reduce their risk. It's true, as some posters are eager to explain, that in other parts of the country and other lines of work, layoffs are common. None of this changes the reality that these folks are scared and panicking. Russell Vought, who was just confirmed as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, has said that he wants federal employees to be "traumatically affected". Well, he has succeeded. Attitudes like Vought's increase the pain for those potentially impacted. Not only are they facing difficult situations, but they believe that their lives are being intentionally made as miserable as possible. Regardless of one's position regarding the downsizing of government, we should all agree that this is no way to treat our fellow citizens.

Yesterday, the Blake Lively thread was once again the most active thread on DCUM. I certainly hope that this engagement is being driven by users trying to escape from the real world for a few moments, because if these posters truly believe that the Blake Lively drama is the most important thing going on in our world today, my view of humanity is going to be diminished even further. After that was another thread that I've already discussed, the one about Fairfax County Public Schools system getting new boundaries. The third most active was about a potential snow day for Montgomery County Public Schools. I have not previously discussed that thread and should start with it today. But I am tired of snow day threads and will skip it. The thread I will start with today was posted in the " Jobs and Careers" forum. Titled, "Executive Order on RIFs coming today", the thread was started after Semafor reported that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump would sign an executive order calling for large-scale reductions in force among federal agencies. The DC area is, of course, home to a large number of federal employees, and any threat to their jobs is obviously something of considerable interest. Posters fixated on two topics related to this news. The first was the legality of the effort. The federal workforce has strong rules in place governing the conditions under which employees can be let go. Indeed, the job security these regulations provide is one of the attractions to federal employment. Posters were anxious to know whether Trump and Shadow President Elon Musk would follow these rules. In addition, posters were very interested in how they personally might be impacted by the reductions in force. Some current jobs will be safer than others, and posters discussed which might be more in danger, hoping that personally they might be protected. One thing I want to highlight is the claim by many of those supportive of the RIFs that Trump ran on this issue and, therefore, has a mandate for getting rid of a large number of federal employees. My memory is different. Large-scale cuts to the federal workforce were part of Project 2025, and the threat of such cuts was often raised by Democrats as a reason not to support Trump. Trump, for his part, claimed that he had never heard of Project 2025, didn't know anything about it, and would not hire anyone associated with it. After he won the election, Trump immediately nominated Russell Vought to head the Office of Personnel Management. Vought authored the section of Project 2025 that proposed steep cuts to the federal workforce. Trump clearly lied during the election and, far from showing some humility for going along with the lie, MAGAs are now rewriting history to erase Trump's refutation of Project 2025. The executive order was released later in the day and, true to form, was written so poorly that most people can't decipher what it is trying to say. Apparently, anyone with any writing talent in Trump's administration has already been RIF'd.

The most active thread yesterday was the thread about the Super Bowl, which I discussed in yesterday's blog post. Skipping that one today, the next most active thread was titled, "Snow Day next Tuesday?" and was posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. A little further down in the list of most active threads was another thread on a similar topic. Titled, "Predictions Snow Feb 11?", it was posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. Rather than discussing the two threads separately, I'll combine them. Both of these threads were created several days ago, Thursday for the Fairfax County Public Schools thread and Friday for the Montgomery County Public Schools thread. Both were created in response to predictions of snow beginning today. The early predictions said that there could be as much as 8 inches of snow falling, though more current expectations top out at 6 inches with as little as 3 inches being possible. Needless to say, predictions of any snow at all are enough to cause panic among parents of school-aged kids. As I have documented in previous blog posts about school snow days, school systems simply cannot win. Regardless of their decisions, there will be critics. Also, no matter the timing of their announcements, that will also be criticized. These threads were among the most active yesterday for slightly different reasons. FCPS announced that it would close all schools three hours early today. True to form, one poster immediately declared this "the worst of all possibilities." MCPS, on the other hand, didn't make any announcement other than to say that no decision had been made. In some ways, this was even more frustrating to posters who were left almost unable to criticize the decision other than to point out how out of character it was for MCPS. But I was careful to say that posters were "almost" unable to criticize the decision because some did find a way. Those were posters who felt that MCPS should have followed the lead of FCPS and announced an early dismissal. Some of these posters are worried that MCPS might make a late call to close early, which, these posters argue, would make things even worse. The inability of school systems to please everyone is very evident by the juxtaposition of these two threads. Both are filled with posters criticizing the school systems' decisions despite those decisions being the opposite of each other.

The most active thread over the weekend was the Blake Lively thread that continues to explore sophisticated legal and social issues such as whether Lively is too old or fat. After that was a thread titled, "Super Bowl 59" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. The original poster explained that she was posting in the entertainment forum rather than the sports forum because the Super Bowl is entertainment. She did not, however, explain why she chose Arabic numerals over the more conventional Roman numerals used for numbering Super Bowls. Because the thread was started more than 8 hours before kick-off time, the first pages of posts were devoted to what posters hoped to see during the game. For instance, one poster hoped that Travis Kelce would propose to Taylor Swift. That didn't happen and, given how he played, Kelce probably would have dropped the ring anyway. Considerable attention was paid to the fact that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump would be attending the game. True to MAGA mentality, Trump supporters were looking forward to Trump's appearance upsetting liberals. Trump, for his part, spent the hours before the game attending to some of the most crucial issues of his presidency, renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and canceling production of the penny. More than 20 years have passed since we created the DCUM website (and the mailing list existed before that), and our aging user base became very apparent when the topic of Kendrick Lamar's halftime show came up. While a number of posters were very familiar with Lamar and particularly his feud with Drake, others had no idea who he was. I found myself firmly planted in the "too old to appreciate" group as I could not understand Lamar's lyrics, let alone enjoy the music. Lamar was easily the most controversial topic of this thread. Not only was there the generational divide, but the fact that the Super Bowl was being played in a city known mostly for its Black entertainers and with a mostly Black halftime show created its own issues. Trump has made the elimination of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) one of the main components of his presidency and, to many of his supporters, anyone who is not a White male is a DEI selection. Therefore, Trump supporters quickly labeled Lamar a "DEI" entertainer. Several posters explained the considerable symbolism that I had missed. Thanks to them, I realized that there was a lot more going on than I had understood, and now I would like to watch the show again in light of my new awareness. It is kind of ironic that a thread that began with Trump supporters looking forward to liberals being angered by Trump's presence ended with MAGA heads exploding thanks to Kendrick Lamar. All of this on a night when the National Football League was doing everything within its power to stress unity.